http://www.sokwanele.com/thisiszimbabwe/
December 14th, 2008
This
sms just received:
A quiet and honest journalist was abducted from his
home in Harare today.
His name is Andrisson Manyere. There is extreme
concern. He is an accredited
freelance journalist.
Posted by
Sokwanele
http://www.zimbabwemetro.com
Local News
December 15,
2008
Prominent Zimbabwean human rights activist, Jestina Mukoko and two
senior
MDC officials are being held in a remote location in Kariba and ZANU
PF
plans to use them as ransom to force the MDC to enter into an all
inclusive
government, a source tellsMetro.
"They are still alive,at least
for now", the source said, but refused to
reveal the exact location where
the captives are kept but told us that its a
remote location in the Kariba
area where the government also keeps anyone
suspected of espionage,working
for the CIA or M16.
The plan according to a source is that Mugabe's
regime wants Tsvangirai to
be back in Zimbabwe and be sworn in as Prime
Minister as they are fears that
he is making a lot of progress outside of
Zimbabwe.The regime desperately
wants the MDC to be part of government as
they feel they can contain that
than the changing wave of opinion and
leadership in the SADC region.
"You will notice the abductions started
when Tsvangirai left the
country,that is why he will never get a passport as
long as he does not
become Prime Minister, right now they will do anything
to make him come back
including making it uncomfortable for any country in
the SADC to keep him,
any country which keeps him will be accused of working
with west to topple
the government", revealed the source.
The recent
abductions of MDC officials are calculated to cut the flow of
information
from Tsvangirai to MDC personnel so as to frustrate him and
force him to
return. State agents are reportedly interested in abducting one
Chris
Mbanga.
ZANU PF 's plan also includes limiting the dissemination of
information to
SADC, as they feel this is weakening their hand.
"They
are really worried about what countries in SADC are getting from the
media,they do not care about the west that much. You will notice in the next
few weeks an effort to muzzle anyone suspected to providing information and
reporting for the international media, that is why Mukoko was seized-to warn
others."
Jestina Mukoko, director of the Zimbabwe Peace Project
(ZPP),disappeared in
the past six weeks and was seized when the government
learnt that leaders in
SADC were relying on her organisation's reports for
information on human
rights abuses.
Within days, other abductions
were carried out by groups of between six and
nine armed men in civilian
clothes using unmarked vehicles without number
plates. On 7 Brodrick
Takawira and Pascal Gonzo, both of the ZPP, were
abducted. Earlier Chris
Dlamini the MDC Director for Security was seized
then on 10 December, Gandhi
Mudzingwa, former Presidential Director for
Morgan Tsvangirai, was kidnapped
just outside Harare.
Mukoko's organisation the ZPP, is funded by the
Dutch and Canadian
governments, is one of the most respected groups in
Zimbabwean civil
society. Its reports have been used in confidential
diplomatic briefing
documents.
One of the greatest fears of Mugabe
and those involved in this year's
election-related violence is that the UN
Security Council will call for an
International Criminal Court
investigation, as it did over Sudanese
President Omar el-Bashir's
involvement in the Darfur killings.
http://www.zimonline.co.za
by Own
Correspondent Monday 15 December 2008
HARARE - Zimbabwe's
opposition MDC will block a proposed constitutional
amendment to create a
power-sharing government because it was not consulted
before the draft law
was gazetted and because its demands for equitable
power sharing have not
been met, a senior official said Sunday.
"We will block this Bill in
Parliament for the obvious reasons that ZANU PF
(President Robert Mugabe's
ruling party) did not consult us and because of
the well known outstanding
issues," said the official.
The MDC official, who did not want to be
named because he did not have
permission from the party to speak on the
matter, said party secretary
general Tendai Biti would today enunciate the
reasons behind the move to
block the draft constitutional amendment at a
press briefing in Harare.
The decision by the MDC to block enactment of
Constitution of Zimbabwe
Amendment Number 19 Bill - gazetted by Mugabe on
Saturday - could deal a
killer punch to a fragile September power-sharing
pact between Zimbabwe's
rival political parties.
Justice Minister
Patrick Chinamasa told state media at the weekend that
refusal by any of the
political parties to back the Bill in Parliament would
mean an end of the
power-sharing pact and the country would have to hold
fresh presidential,
parliamentary and local government elections.
The Morgan Tsvangirai-led
MDC controls 100 seats in the 210-member lower
house of Parliament, while
ZANU PF won 99 seats. A breakaway faction of the
MDC led by Arthur Mutambara
holds 10 seats with the remaining seat in the
hands of an independent
member.
The three main political parties that all agreed the details of
the draft
constitutional amendment during talks in South Africa last month
must
cooperate to ensure a two thirds majority required for the Bill to
pass.
The agreement between Mugabe, Tsvangirai and Mutambara had brought
hope that
the troubled southern African nation could finally emerge from its
crisis.
But the agreement brokered by former South African President
Thabo Mbeki had
in recent days looked increasingly in danger of unravelling
as Tsvangirai
and Mugabe wrangle over distribution of key government
posts.
Recent abductions of MDC members and human rights activists by
unknown
people but who are thought to be agents of the government's feared
spy
Central Intelligence Organisation added to doubts over the
agreement.
MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa told the media at the weekend
that unresolved
political issues needed to be tackled first before dealing
with the
constitution amendment that would pave way for appointment of
Tsvangirai and
Mutambara as premier and deputy premier in a government of
national unity.
He said: "What we are saying is that these political
issues will stand in
the way of the legal process. We need to clear the
political issues first
before moving on to the constitution."
Among
the sticking issues that the MDC wants resolved are the allocations of
ministerial portfolios, the appointment of provincial governors and the
constitution and composition of the National Security Council.
A
meeting of the MDC's decision-making national council last Friday resolved
that the party would not be: "part of a government of national unity unless
and until there is an amicable settlement on the outstanding issues of the
equitability and fairness in the allocation of ministerial portfolios and
provincial governors."
The opposition council said it also wanted the
issue of the constitution and
composition of the national security council
and the enactment of
Constitutional Amendment No. 19 resolved while it also
called for Mbeki's
recusal as mediator.
Once prosperous Zimbabwe is
in the grip of a severe economic and
humanitarian crisis that critics blame
on mismanagement by Mugabe and seen
in a cholera outbreak that has killed
close to 800 people since August, amid
acute shortages of medicines, food
and every basic commodity.
United States (US) Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice is this week expected
to hold talks with key players at the
United Nations to push for more robust
action by the Security Council to
address mounting crises in Zimbabwe.
US President George W. Bush, the
West and some African leaders alarmed by
rising deaths in Zimbabwe due to
cholera have in recent weeks stepped up
calls for Mugabe's resignation.
However, the African Union has opposed such
calls. - ZimOnline
http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/?p=8779
December 14, 2008
By Our
Correspondent
BULAWAYO - Zanu-PF deputy political commissar, Richard
Ndlovu and two war
veterans were last week forcibly evicted from a farm by
armed police from a
farm in Matabeleland South which they were occupying in
violation of last
month's court order directing that they vacate the
farm,
Ndlovu and war veterans, Leonard Nzima and Esthel Ndebele occupied
McGee
Lucky Tweedale farm in Figtree after evicting the owner from the land,
one D
Drury in 2000.
Numerous court applications to have the trio
evicted since then had failed.
Harare High Court Judge, Justice Susan
Mavangira, issued a final order on
November 19 but this was also resisted by
the trio.
Authoritative sources, told The Zimbabwe Times that the
farmers, armed with
the court order directing that they reclaim their land,
were forced to seek
the help of the District Administrator ( DA) for
Bulilima, Ethel Moyo and
the police on Thursday to force the eviction of the
Zanu-PF political
commissar and the war veterans.
"The DA led more
than 12 armed police officers to the farm where they
removed Ndlovu, Nzima
and Ndebele's properties from the farmhouse and
dumped them along the
Bulawayo- Plumtree highway.
"On the day of the eviction, the DA had met
the local traditional leadership
from the area and they had unanimously
agreed that Ndlovu and the war
veterans were staying on the farm illegally,"
a police officer who was part
of the eviction team said.
When
contacted for comment yesterday Ndlovu reacted angrily, "I am going
back to
my farm and stop wasting my time."
Ndlovu had occupied Subsection 3 of
McGee Lucky Tweedale Farm while Nzima
and Ndebele had occupied Subsection 1
and 2 respectively.
In the High Court Justice Mavangira declared that
"the applicant Drury
owns McGee Lucky Tweedale Farm and is subject to the
full protection of the
law and security in accordance with the provisions of
Section 16(9b) of the
Constitution of Zimbabwe"
Justice Mavangira
further declared that the offer letter dated 3 March 2006
in favour of
Ndlovu and Nzima was "invalid and of no force".
The government last week
said it would push ahead with more farm seizures
until all white owned land
was transferred to landless blacks. The
government said this in reaction to
a SADC court tribunal that ordered that
the state not interfere with
operations at white owned farms. The government
said the ruling sought to
reverse the gains of the land reform programme.
http://www.newzimbabwe.com
Posted to the web: 15/12/2008
03:22:23
ZIMBABWE scaled up its diplomatic war with Botswana on Monday,
saying there
was "compelling evidence" that it had trained bandits in
preparation for a
military invasion to overthrow President Robert Mugabe's
government.
The sensational claims were made by Zimbabwe's Justice
Minister Patrick
Chinamasa, who said evidence that Botswana had "rendered
itself a surrogate
of Western imperial powers. and that it has decided to be
a destabilising
factor in the region" had been handed over to the Southern
African
Development Community (SADC)'s Organ on Politics, Defence and
Security.
Botswana has previously denied allegations by the Zimbabwe
government that
it had recruited former elements of Zimbabwe's security
services and youths
from the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)
led by Morgan
Tsvangirai in preparation for a military
offensive.
Relations between the two neighbours are at an all-time low.
Last month,
Botswana's foreign minister invited the ire of Zimbabwean
officials when he
called on regional countries to close their borders, and
squeeze President
Mugabe out of power.
Chinamasa said: "You are aware
that the last time the SADC Organ on
Politics, Defence and Security met in
Harare, we lodged a complaint against
Botswana. Botswana has availed its
territory, material and logistical
support to MDC-T for the recruitment and
military training of youths for the
eventual destabilisation of the country
with a view to effecting illegal
regime change.
"Compelling evidence
has already been proffered and the matter is now in the
hands of the (Sadc)
Troika and it is not for us to say how the matter will
proceed. The Troika
is now in charge of the matter and we all await their
next
move.
"What evidence is there establishes that Botswana has rendered
itself a
surrogate of Western imperial powers, that it is acting contrary to
its past
role as a Frontline State, and that it has decided to be a
destabilising
factor in the region.
"My plea to (Ian) Khama and his
government is to think carefully about the
irreversible harm they have been
plotting to unleash on the region."
Speaking to the state-run Herald
newspaper, Chinamasa said the Botswana
government had put itself "on a
course that is bound to bring a lot of
suffering on Zimbabweans and the
region, including the population of
Botswana."
Chinamasa, the Herald
said, declined to say what evidence had been found.
But the paper said its
sources indicated that Botswana had recruited former
Zimbabwe security
personnel who had "spilled the bins after gathering
sufficient information
from inside".
It said the plot was "to train groups of bandits who would
instigate
instability that would give the West a pretext to get the United
Nations
Security Council leeway to authorise a military invasion of
Zimbabwe".
Tsvangirai currently remains in Botswana where he says he will
not leave
before he is issued a passport by the Zimbabwe government. He left
on a
travel document which has since expired.
Tsvangirai's MDC has
threatened to block a constitutional amendment paving
the way for a unity
government with Mugabe's ruling Zanu PF party from
passing in parliament in
a dispute over the control of the security
portfolios in the new
government.
But Chinamasa said Tsvangirai's party had been negotiating in
bad faith,
"talking peace while preparing for war".
"As far as we are
concerned as Zanu PF," he said, "we have done all we can
to ensure peace and
stability in the country which are prerequisites for
economic recovery.
MDC-T, on the other hand, is bent on foisting war on the
country and the
region. It has become evident that MDC-T is negotiating in
bad faith and has
engaged in dialogue as a ploy to string us along. They
lack
sincerity.
"We now have evidence that while they were talking peace they
have been
preparing for war and insurgency, as well as soliciting the West
to invade
our country on the pretext of things like cholera.
"We can
look our people in the eye and say 'enough is enough'. Our backs are
now to
the wall and a day may soon come when each and every one of us may be
called
to defend our revolutionary gains and our sovereignty."
Chinamasa said
last week that if the MDC vetoed the constitutional
amendment, that would
lead to a collapse of the power sharing agreement
signed on September 15 and
new elections would be ordered.
No comment was immediately available from
the government of Botswana on
Zimbabwe's latest claims.
http://www.newzimbabwe.com
By Lindie
Whiz
Posted to the web: 14/12/2008 23:21:49
A GERMAN company has used a
bilateral agreement to evict a black Zimbabwean
farmer in the prime farming
area of Figtree, Matabeleland South Province.
N & N Farming (Pvt) Ltd
obtained an eviction order through the High Court in
Harare on November 19.
Justice Mavangira granted the order.
The Deputy Sheriff enforced the
eviction order on Leonard Nzima, who was
offered the piece of land,
identified in court as Subsection 1 McGee Lucky
Tweedale, through a
government offer letter dated March 3, 2006.
The Deputy Sheriff, in the
company of police officers, swooped on the farm
last week Tuesday to carry
out the eviction.
Esthel Ndebele, described in court as the wife of a
late senior civil
servant in the district, was also evicted, although she
was not cited as a
respondent in the court papers.
Nzima was cited as
a third respondent in the matter, with the Ministry of
State Security
responsible for Land, Land Reform and Resettlement, the
Ministry of Foreign
Affairs and the Attorney General's Office also added to
the court
application as respondents.
Nzima is a beneficiary of the controversial
and chaotic land reform
programme in which started in 2000. Twelve white
farmers were killed as
marauding war veterans and landless villagers marched
onto their farms.
None of the respondents in the application turned up
for a hearing on
February 28, and the judge made an order based on their
default and after
lawyers for N & N Farming addressed the court on the
merits of the
application.
Nzima and his lawyer, Thabisa Sibanda, of
James, Moyo-Majwabu and Nyoni deny
being served with the notice of the
hearing and plan to appeal against the
eviction order.
But a major
legal hurdle, which was the thrust of N & N Farming's
application, is a
bilateral agreement between the governments of Zimbabwe
and federal
government of Germany.
Justice Mavangira declared that the N & N
Farming owns the remainder of
McGee Lucky Farm under Deed of Transfer No
2308/00 (Newlands).
"Newlands is subject to the full protection of the
law and security in
accordance with the provisions of Section 16 (9b) of the
Constitution of
Zimbabwe as read with the agreement between the Government
of the Republic
of Zimbabwe and the Federal Republic of German concerning
the Encouragement
and Reciprocal Protection Investment that was entered into
on 14 April 2000.
It continues to subsist and is binding to the Government
of Zimbabwe," reads
the order.
Justice Mavangira further declared
that Newlands has not been competently
and validly acquired by the
Government of Zimbabwe under the provisions of
section 5 (1) of the Land
Acquisition Act or with regards the provisions of
section 16B of the
Constitution of Zimbabwe.
The section concerns the expropriation of
property and the judge adds that
any purported acquisition of Newlands is
null and void for want of
compliance with "mandatory and peremptory prior
requisite set out in the
agreement between the two governments".
The
judge further declared that the offer letter dated 3 March 2006 in
favour of
Nzima was incompetent, invalid and of no force or effect by reason
of the
subsistence of the Bilateral Protection and Investment Agreement in
favour
of the applicant.
The Harare judgement comes hard on the heels of a SADC
Tribunal Court ruling
that Zimbabwe's violent land reform exercise did
discriminate against 78
white commercial farmers who had filed a group
application challenging the
seizure of their farms.
The President of
the tribunal, Judge Lius Mondlane, ruled that Zimbabwe was
in breach of the
SADC treaty with regards to discrimination when it seized
the
farms.
Robert Mugabe has already rubbished the ruling, saying it was "an
exercise
in futility".
http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/?p=8783
December 14, 2008
BULAWAYO -
Former Zanu-PF politburo member Dumiso Dabengwa, elected leader
of revived
PF Zapu on Sunday, has described President Robert Mugabe as an
unrepentant
leader who believes in violence to maintain his hold on power.
Dabengwa,
who left Zanu-PF before the March elections, was elected as
president of
PF Zapu after leading a breakaway from Zanu-PF. Dr Canswell
Nziramasanga of
Mashonaland West was elected vice-president.
Dabengwa said Mugabe ignored
advice from other Zanu-PF members to cease
violence. Mugabe argued that
Zanu-PF's continued hold on power could only be
fully secured through
coercion, he said
"When I was in government and in Zanu-PF, I used to
tell Mugabe not to
victimize and use violence against the MDC but he did not
listen," said
Dabengwa at a press conference soon after his
election.
"He refused to stop using violence against the MDC saying that
the power
base of Zanu-PF was threatened. He was unrepentant and believes
violence is
the solution."
Disgruntled Zanu-PF senior officials,
mainly from the southern region - led
by Dabengwa - officially broke away
from the ruling party and revived PF
Zapu at a two-day convention held at
MacDonald Hall in Mzilikazi suburb.
The move effectively ended a
political marriage between Mugabe's Zanu-PF and
PF Zapu sealed through a
unity accord in 1987.
PF Zapu was forced to sign the accord following a
crackdown on its main
support base in Matabeleland. The operation, codenamed
Gukurahundi, resulted
in the death of about 20 000 civilians, according to
the Catholic Commission
of Peace and Justice (CCJP).
Dabengwa also
urged the MDC to pull out of the power-sharing talks and push
for a new
constitution before fresh polls to solve the political impasse are
held.
"The MDC should pull of the power-sharing talks as they have
failed to
produce the desire result and failed to solve the political
crisis," said
Dabengwa, a former minister of home affairs.
"It is
clear that Mugabe does not want to share power with Tsvangirai. The
MDC
should announce the talks are dead and pull out.
"Fresh elections are the
only way out of the political crisis. However, the
MDC should refuse to
participate in such polls if there is no new
constitution. An election under
the current constitution will produce a
defective result as it allows Mugabe
to bend the rules.
"The MDC should start pushing for a new constitution
now to avoid a repeat
of the current crisis, where a defective constitution
in June produced a
sham result."
On Thursday, Mugabe's government
threatened fresh polls if the MDC did not
join his government following the
signing of a power-sharing deal between
Zanu-PF and the MDC in
September.
The implementation of deal has stalled after Mugabe refused to
cede some key
ministries and posts to the MDC.
Another drenching day. Our
tarpaulin collected gallons of rainwater which we
periodically unloaded by
prodding it with umbrellas. It was a bedraggled day
for our partners, the
Zimbabwe Association, who were marking it as a
'singing for our supper' day
in towns all over Britain. To quote them,
'After years of being stranded in
the limbo of a seemingly endless asylum
process, hundreds of Zimbabweans in
the UK are now destitute and without
support. Those attempting to support
themselves are faced with
criminalisation for working without permission. In
this season of goodwill
desperate Zimbabweans ask for their status as
refugees to be recognized, so
that they can stand on their own feet, support
themselves, pay taxes and
rebuild their lives.' The Vigil was happy to join
the Zimbabwe Association
choir singing carols in the rain in English, Shona
and Ndebele. Money
collected from passers-by will go to help destitute
Zimbabweans in the UK
and to assist with the cholera crisis.
The
Vigil's own carol day will take place next week when we are mounting a
media
stunt on the last Saturday before Christmas. Our Mugabe impersonator,
Fungayi Mabhunu, will make an appearance as Father Cholera dressed in the
traditional Santa Claus suit and wearing our Mugabe mask. He will hand out
presents labelled cholera, anthrax, starvation, violence, murder, rape,
torture, greed etc, etc. Passers-by will be invited to light candles before
a Cross in the doorway of the Embassy. Yes, we know, a Cross at Zimbabwe
House! There is bound to be an angry complaint to the police from the
devil's
own Ambassador. The Vigil wishes to show the passing public the
horrors of
the Zimbabwe Christmas this year in contrast with our Western
Christmas even
during the current economic downturn.
Fungayi today
had a trial run with his Father Cholera outfit and was
interviewed by CNN,
who filmed the Vigil. The Vigil is always asked to put
forward people to
speak about the Zimbabwe crisis and Fungayi earlier this
week appeared on
France 24 TV. Luka Phiri of the Zimbabwe Association and
the Vigil appeared
on BBC television. Ephraim Tapa was interviewed by
Deutsche Welle Radio on
Human Rights Day about his torture experiences.
The plight of Zimbabwean
human rights campaigner, Jestina Mukoko, and other
activists who have been
abducted in Zimbabwe has prompted international
concern. The Independent
Catholic News has set up a petition (see
http://www.indcatholicnews.com/petition324.html).
They asked us where they
can submit it and we are putting them in touch with
SW Radio Africa's page
of recommended action from Amnesty International -
http://www.swradioafrica.com/pages/disappeared101208.htm.
For
latest Vigil pictures check: http://www.flickr.com/photos/zimbabwevigil/
FOR
THE RECORD: 94 signed the register.
FOR YOUR DIARY:
· Central
London Zimbabwe Forum. Monday 15th December at 7.30 pm.
The speaker is Dr.
Farai Madzimbamuto, a Director of Zimbabwe Human Rights
NGO Forum, who will
talk about the cholera epidemic. Venue: The Cole Room,
Fabian Society, 11
Dartmouth St, London SW1H 9BN (020 7227 4900). Nearest
station: St. James'
Park.
· ROHR Wolverhampton Christmas Party. Saturday 20th December.
Venue:
Heath Town Community Centre, 208 Chervil Rise, Wolverhampton WV10
0HP.
Contact: Colleen Maredza 07733394648, Nancy Mangwandu 07727019329,
Tendai
Sithole 07966381953.
· ROHR Brighton Christmas Fundraising
Party. Saturday 20th December.
Venue: St Leonard Church Hall, 12 Glebe
Villas, Hove, Brighton BN3 5SL.
Admission £5 (one plate of Isithwala/Sadza
and two drinks free). Contact:
Sinikiwe Dube 07824668763, Seph Mpofu
07786164808, Phyllis Chibanguza
07535936460.
· Next Glasgow
Vigil. Saturday, 20th December 2008, 2 - 6 pm. Venue:
Argyle Street
Precinct. For more information contact: Patrick Dzimba, 07990
724 137,
Tafadzwa Musemwa 07954 344 123 and Roggers Fatiya 07769 632 687
·
Zimbabwe Association's Women's Weekly Drop-in Centre. Fridays
10.30 am - 4
pm. Venue: The Fire Station Community and ICT Centre, 84 Mayton
Street,
London N7 6QT, Tel: 020 7607 9764. Nearest underground: Finsbury
Park. For
more information contact the Zimbabwe Association 020 7549 0355
(open
Tuesdays and Thursdays).
Vigil co-ordinators
The Vigil, outside the
Zimbabwe Embassy, 429 Strand, London, takes place
every Saturday from 14.00
to 18.00 to protest against gross violations of
human rights by the current
regime in Zimbabwe. The Vigil which started in
October 2002 will continue
until internationally-monitored, free and fair
elections are held in
Zimbabwe. http://www.zimvigil.co.uk.
http://news.yahoo.com
by Lachlan
Carmichael
WASHINGTON (AFP) - In the Bush administration's last month,
Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice is due in New York Monday in a bid to
keep Mideast
peace talks on track and turn up the heat on Zimbabwe's Robert
Mugabe.
During talks at the United Nations, Rice will also discuss how to
tackle a
surge in piracy off Somalia's coast, check Iran's nuclear
ambitions, and
deal with the fallout from the terrorist attacks in India,
officials said.
Her two-day visit to the heart of world diplomacy
highlights many of the
daunting challenges President George W. Bush's
administration will hand over
to Barack Obama's when the White House
switches occupants on January 20.
Palestinian-Israeli peace remains a
priority for the Bush team, which hoped
the parties could clinch a deal in a
year when it revived the negotiations
in Annapolis, Maryland in November
last year, after a seven-year hiatus.
But it is now settling for just
keeping the process going as Rice meets
Monday with UN chief Ban Ki-moon,
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and
European Union foreign policy
chief Javier Solana.
Former British prime minister Tony Blair is also due
at the talks as the
quartet's envoy.
The United States, the United
Nations, Russia and the European Union make up
the Middle East quartet,
which has endorsed a roadmap for a Palestinian
state to coexist peacefully
alongside a secure Israel.
"We can review where we are," a senior US
official told reporters on
condition of anonymity, adding the quartet
meeting is an opportunity to
"keep sustaining the momentum."
No
tangible progress has been made on resolving the core issues of
Jerusalem,
the future borders of a Palestinian state and refugees since the
Annapolis
process was launched.
But the Bush administration argues that both
Israelis and Palestinians are
paving the way for peace as the Palestinians
improve their ability to stop
violence and the Israelis allow greater
movement for Palestinians.
In closed-door consultations, Security Council
envoys on Saturday weighed a
US-Russian draft resolution to fully involve
the Security Council at a
crucial moment of transition in Middle East
peacemaking.
And it welcomed the diplomatic quartet's consideration, in
consultation with
the parties, of an international meeting on the Middle
East in Moscow next
year.
The 15-member UN Security Council is due to
hold a closed-door meeting on
Zimbabwe as Rice, Bush and other leaders step
up the pressure for Mugabe to
step aside.
The United States blames
Mugabe for Zimbabwe's political deadlock, economic
meltdown and humanitarian
crisis, including a deadly cholera outbreak.
State Department spokesman
Sean McCormack said Washington has been talking
to Zimbabwe's powerful
neighbor South Africa and other Security Council
members about how to "start
a process that will bring an end to the tragedy
that is unfolding in
Zimbabwe."
Countries with leverage should use it to press for change in
Zimbabwe,
McCormack said.
A senior US official, speaking on condition
of anonymity, proposed Thursday
that Zimbabwe's neighbors, particularly
South Africa, close their borders
with the country.
McCormack said
piracy will also be a hot topic as Somali pirates hold at
least 17 ships,
including an arms-laden Ukrainian cargo vessel and a Saudi
supertanker
carrying two million barrels of crude oil.
The United States has
circulated a draft resolution allowing to chase
offenders even on Somali
soil, diplomats said.
McCormack said Rice will also likely discuss
continuing efforts to stop Iran
from enriching uranium, which Washington
fears will be used toward building
an atomic bomb rather than peaceful
nuclear energy, as Tehran claims.
Rice will probably discuss the deadly
attacks last month in Mumbai when she
meets British Foreign Secretary David
Miliband, McCormack added. "I'm sure
that she will touch on the issues
related to India and Pakistan."
http://www.nehandaradio.com
15 December
2008
Florence Chitauro, remember her? Well British newspaper The Observer
reports
that the former Minister for Labour, Public Service and Social
Welfare in
Mugabe's government is now living in London and travels to and
from Zimbabwe
without any hindrance.
As Labour Minister she helped
brutally suppress strikes against workers in
the country. The Observer
reports that she lives in a plush town house in
West London with husband
James Chitauro, himself a former senior civil
servant in Mugabe's regime.
The Chitauto's have a son and daughter who also
live in the United
Kingdom.
Confronted over her past and current free movements, Chitauro
told the
paper, she was now a 'private citizen.' Asked whether she now
denounced the
Mugabe regime, she replied: 'No, I'm not going to say that.'
She also
claimed she had lived and contributed to the UK for a long
time.
Labour MP Kate Hoey slammed the UK Border Agency for being,
'obsessed with
trying to meet targets on asylum seekers and keeping out any
Zimbabwean who
they think might not return home. But they need to spend more
time checking
out some of the Zanu-PF apparatchiks who have been coming in
and out for
years and who are personally responsible for what is happening
in Zimbabwe
now.'
http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/?p=8788
December 14, 2008
By James
Makuvise
President Robert Mugabe's press secretary, George Charamba,
scrambled with
feigned anger last week to undo the damage his boss had
caused by declaring
in public that cholera had been contained.
In his
mind, President Mugabe probably did believe that cholera had indeed
been
contained and that it was being used by his enemies, the British and
the
Americans as reasons why they should invade his country. George and our
own
Comical Ali, Sikhanyiso Ndlovu, are trying to outdo each other in
defending
their boss.
George is winning by a mile. First he speaks and writes
better English - the
jaw-breakers as they used to call them in those days
gone by. Secondly he
sees The Boss every day, briefs him about the state of
the world and puts
any spin that Gushungo wants to hear. Thirdly he dresses
better, in dark
suits like HE really loves to see "his people" appear in
public in and is
formal. Fourthly, George has got all the editors of the
public media by the
shorts and curlies.
George can be intimidating
when he wants to turn on the charm. One day he is
inviting the editors or
mere reporter to his farm to be mesmerized by his
great farming prowess and
next moment he could be intimidating with "simple"
questions like "ko iwe
urikusevenzera ani?" No, you are translating it wrong
in your mind. The
translation, according to George, is "We are paying your
salary and you are
stuffing us?" Reporters and editors have left his
presence thoroughly
humiliated. Not so with Comical Ali. Last week they
could afford a guffaw
and giggle or two in his very presence when he spoke
about cholera having
been planted by the British.
The real sad story here is that more and
more these two gentlemen are
painting a true picture of a President under
siege, a man who is now
completely detached from reality and a man who is
battling, not any more
with his own demons, but with normal age affecting
the brain. The ministers
will tell you the sad story about HE dozing off in
mid-sentence when
chairing Cabinet meeting and none of them will dare wake
him up. They will
all pretend to read their papers, speak in hushed tones
and send text
messages until he wakes up again. Then everybody will pretend
they saw
nothing.
One feels they are complicit in the destruction of
Zimbabwe. But others do
believe there will be no end to this until the
entire population has been
coerced to turn into party zealots. Didymus
Mutasa is particularly upset
that most of the population is turning into a
bunch of ingrates. The party
liberated them from the yoke of colonialism and
now they are turning against
it. Once he more than suggested that the
country would be better off with a
population of six million of the party
faithful. If you thought that was
said in jest think again. Recently some
ministers, including Stan Mudenge,
have said they did not care very much
about the people dying with cholera.
"They are not our people," he famously
said. Meaning that the people in the
cities were MDC and therefore deserved
to die.
Both George Charamba and Comical Ali were at home more than
suggesting that
the cholera outbreak was the work of the British and the
Americans. After
all, the Americans more than admitted it when they said
they had been
preparing for this emergency for some time. Well, I have news
for George.
The Centre for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta was set up to
track not only
potential diseases that would affect Americans and be
prepared to deal with
them. It was set up to serve whoever else. And if the
Mugabe regime really
didn't anticipate this outbreak then the situation is
worse than we thought.
Cholera is only a symptom. It's the water and
sanitation and garbage
collection stupid! Deal with that and you don't have
cholera. Period.
It is difficult to imagine a government more out of
touch with reality. It
deals with money shortage with the short term
solution of printing higher
denomination notes instead of printing, if
printing is the solution, of more
lower denomination notes. Only an idiot
fails to understand that the prices
will climb to the highest note in
inflation. There is no change so the loaf
of bread is 500 million. Soon that
note will not be good enough for a tip
and we will go to a billion dollar
note and the taxi ride will be two
billion, or three or
four.
The
government has to come to terms with reality. Morgan Tsvangirai has
thrown
them a lifeline by agreeing at all to the GNU. He did win the
elections you
know, and he does deserve more than he is being given by the
losing party.
But now he is facing the decision of his life. He hangs on to
his party's
principles and more people suffer and die or he goes in with the
devil
knowing full well there are no long folks at the table. Yet Mugabe is
banking on the same thing, that with deaths and more deaths, kidnappings and
murder, Morgan will be forced to blink...first.
There should be no
thought of The Hague for Mugabe. He is old and already
displaying signs of
Alzheimer's. But what about the younger ones in his
intelligence service,
the police and the military? Many already have cases
to answer for with the
estimated 20 000 deaths in Matabeleland. They will
still be around when
Gushungo goes. There are already more cases made -
Murambatsvina, cholera
and the diamond fields called Chiyadzwa. And that
story is yet to be told in
full. Just how the Reserve Bank has recruited
Lebanese, South Africans and
Nigerians as runners.
One gets away with anything in Zimbabwe today if
one has powerful enough
"principals". The media can write all it wants,
expose the shenanigans of
Gideon Gono and fuel imports, but there will not
be so much as a suggestion
for an investigation. Jestina Mukoko disappeared
because she was reporting
the un-reportable and the government is unfazed by
the blah blah all over.
More continue to disappear and Zimbabweans feel very
much like Argentineans
under the generals.
Many colleagues believe
Jestina's kidnapping may be the too-big-a-chew that
will finally get stuck
in Mugabe's windpipe. The security forces cannot now
suddenly produce her
after the police swore she was nowhere in their
custody. The Securitate is
in a bit of a twist right now. Do they release
her or just make her
disappear like so many others before her? The answer,
putting oneself in
their demented heads, is chillingly obvious.
But these bloodhounds are
simply getting out of hand, in some cases plainly
settling scores for some
other politicians. The beginnings of a War Lords
society are there for all
to see. Liberia, Somalia. Is Zimbabwe to follow?
Zimbabweans have this
perpetual denial about things real. No, it can't
happen to us. We said so
about the economy, our fantastic administration and
education. Our health
system was second to none in the region and we laughed
at "makwacha" in the
face of Zambians.
The late Julius Nyerere, a clever man who saw it coming
and decided to leave
just as his country was scrapping the bottom of the
barrel, and Samora
Machel told Mugabe right at the start: don't make the
same mistakes we made.
Not only did Mugabe make the same mistakes, and more.
He never so much as
admitted it. And he wants to go to the grave with the
country itself.
And Zimbabweans will continue to blame everyone else but
themselves for not
removing this man. This is the reason why, defecting in
thinking as he may
be, Morgan Tsvangirai and Simba Makoni will be my Man of
the Year awardees.
http://www.moneyweb.co.za
Zimbabweans should demand that Mugabe
step down and save human beings in
Zimbabwe from further
harm.
Clapperton Chakanetsa Mavhunga*
15 December 2008
01:06
Tony King is right, but his reference raises questions about
whether this
intervention is against and because of cholera or a general
shift in
approach that is only using cholera as a pretext? I err on the side
of
pessimism for a host of reasons.
Notice that the most powerful
player in this, South Africa, still can't
bring itself to actually say to
Mugabe, 'Grandpa, you are the problem. Step
aside or be pushed'. They are
still epileptic about it, talking about
"politicians" needing to put the
interests of their people first. Tutu has
cut right to the chest, but he's a
clergyman that Mugabe has in the past
called "That Little Bishop". Odinga
has said it as prime minister but Kibaki
is silent as president. Only little
Botswana has had the balls to say it.
The US and Britain "can't" say more
than they have because, many say, they
carry such extra luggage. Zimbabweans
inside the country can't say 'Go or
It's War'. Those outside can, but will
have to count the chances of what
happens to their relatives inside the
country. Like they used to say in
Kenya, 'It is treason to imagine the death
of the president'. Let alone war
against his entire system of patronage. But
the temperatures are rising
towards such a conclusion to the point where
even heads of state and
government are saying it, thereby offering assurance
to Zimbabweans hitherto
unsure where a rear base might exist for a struggle
from outside to imagine
the possibility.
So thus far, the problem for
Zimbabweans has been that unless you build a
strong coalition of allies
ready to offer space for landing, training, or
launching such an
undertaking, it's not possible from inside the country
unless there is a
mutiny. Which, as I said earlier, is something that the
regime in all
probability stage-managed last week in the hope of ensnaring
one or two
gullibles. Contrary to earlier claims that it has rested its case
that the
opposition was training insurgents in Botswana, the state is still
actively
ratcheting that narrative up with the SADC Troika on Politics and
Defense.
So the search for a smoking gun is still on.
If Pretoria does 'a
Botswana' (threaten to 'lock Mugabe in' by closing the
borders while saying
no to military basing on its soil), then it's a
game-changer. Yes it's a
step for SA to say we will not give you R300m in
aid. Yes it's a start to go
in and feed 'the people' and not give aid to
'the state'. But this is just
an exercise in 'first aid', a band-aid. The
real cure lies not in tackling
the chronic symptoms, but to use such
intervention as a platform for a
cure.
Even as a band-aid, and notwithstanding that Quiet Diplomacy
rescued Mugabe
from the numerous tight corners into which Zimbabweans had
driven their own
tyrant, I don't quite have faith in the competence of the
medic. Unless the
South Africans are going to distribute the aid in ways
different from past
trends, I don't quite see how Pretoria will
differentiate between what is
"the state" and what is "the
people".
In the past we have seen that the same thugs who masquerade as
chiefs and
local structures and whom you wouldn't put the label "the state"
on, are
precisely the capillaries of Zanu (PF) on the ground. Are the South
Africans
going to insist, for example, that, 'no, we will rather work with
NGOs'? Or
are they going to bring this relief together with an entire
manpower
infrastructure that says, 'okay, the Zimbabwe state--stand there
and do
nothing. Just watch us in action?' I have my doubts. So on paper this
logistic intervention is going to circumnavigate the state. In practice, it
will feed into the network of patronage that is Zanu (PF). In the end,
Pretoria will do the opposite of what it is saying. Thanks for the food
Pretoria, but your job was to prevent Mbeki from taking us where we are to
start with. Now you fear cholera contagion and want to hurry everybody up?
Not so fast.
One of the biggest problems talking to South Africans,
including those who
either consulted for and advised their government has
always been their
conceited sense of cleverness about the Zimbabwean issue.
This idea that
they are the ones that know what exactly Mugabe is thinking
and how best to
"handle him". I lived in South Africa during the heady days
of Thabo Mbeki
and his stupid quiet diplomacy. You just have to have been
there when they
talked about his maneuverings as if it was some chess
game.
So too with the rest of Africa: it was hard to take a contrary
position on
the Zimbabwe question at African fora. One colleague once even
threatened
me: "People like you should be made to disappear the moment they
touch down
at Harare International Airport". To criticize Mugabe and be a
Pan-Africanist (depending on whether you mean the old or the new), let alone
an African, was like mixing water and oil. Some even said, "What's wrong
with you Zimbabweans? You get a leader like Mugabe who gives you land and
you support that traitor (Tsvangirai)! Give us your president and we will
gladly offer you Mwai Kibaki". I was attending a scientific conference in
Nairobi on that occasion.
All these are symptoms of a brilliant
Mugabe plan to use land as a
smokescreen to hoodwink the rest of Africa and
its diaspora into focusing
its attention on the white farms and make race
the central subject of
discussion. And the concert was sold out well before
tickets went on sale.
Meanwhile, our tyrant unleashed his thugs on
dissenters--who happened to
include the white farmers. It isn't surprising
that Africanists were
ensnared in their discourse to hold conferences upon
conferences on the land
question. The problem of separating land and
democracy vexed not just the
international audience of Mugabe's concert, but
even us, the Zimbabweans.
Only now are we seeing more clearly that we aided
and abated our own tyranny
through our propensity to believe that the white
man's misfortune is the
black man's fortune. The white farmer's once
thriving land now leveled flat
of any trees or crop equates with the black
man's flat stomach-and
dysentery-dripping rectum. I don't mean that land
isn't important. It is. I
don't mean pasts mustn't be righted. They should.
But let's concede that
Mugabe picked his spot and used it to divert the
world and Africa from his
growing unpopularity. Only then can we make sense
of the cholera before us:
I mean Mugabe, not the pathogen.
To many
Africans used to geriatrics, Mugabe's age and its correlation to
democracy
was never of any consequence. It was another slick move--bring in
an
entirely powerful and irresistible issue to distract people's attention
from
the president's age, so that little will be read into an old man
running for
the umpteenth time. Fixated on land, few people ever looked up
to see Mugabe
grow older and older from 76 to 84 years old hurtling towards
85.
In
the meantime, his "peers" were coming into power and egressing, but
Mugabe
was still there. Today he looks around himself: all he sees are his
(great)grandsons. Mbeki's hair has joined the white camouflage his eyebrows
had already endorsed, but Mugabe is still looking black.
So then the
other day we saw people calling themselves "the Elders"
(emphasis on "the"
because they were convinced they must be 'the ones'). No
wonder why Mugabe
could not see them. Jimmy Carter was born the same year as
Mugabe (1924).
But Carter was born on 1 October, eight months later than
Mugabe, who was
already crawling around the yard at Kutama. Kofi Annan was
born 14 years
later-possibly when Mugabe was already seeing the girls. Graca
arrived into
this world as Graca Simbine in 1945, long after Mugabe had gone
through the
regular initiations of bachelorhood perhaps. No wonder Mugabe
saw no reason
why these boys and girls were coming to see him other than the
mischief of
their youth.
Age matters because the paradigm of "African solutions for
African problems"
rests on cultural norms that respect age as wisdom. By
contrast, the
postcolonial etiquette of diplomacy holds that heads of state,
mostly
presidents elected through the ballot (regardless of whether a census
of
their gray hair has already been concluded), have equal weight at the
table
of nations. And then you have this patriarch, who looks like grandpa
surrounded "by the boys". Barack Obama is 47, Mugabe 84. Even if you play
games and switch the numbers such that 47 = 74, Obama is still 10 years
short.
And then you have the sentimental associations that Africa
enshrines
Mugabe's immortality, this inedible creature called
anti-colonialism and
Pan-Africanism. This old type which Mugabe ratchets up
as a shield, a
smokescreen to excite even the most intellectual of all and
render them
stupid and ridiculous in the eyes of Zimbabweans. And when
cholera strikes,
there is a sense of outrage that "things have really fallen
apart"? It is as
if a people who were struggling against their tyrant all
along were speaking
in tongues.
No they were not. The academics was
looking somewhere else, hearing the
voices they had associated with a long
trajectory of oppression that was en
vogue as they grew up, which
conditioned them to be decidedly opposed to
anyone who challenged their
anti-colonial struggle heroes. The resentment of
colonial oppression
underwrote Mugabe's tyranny, and gave him carte blanche
to bludgeon, rape,
and torture, all in the name of pan-Africanism.
So now, as people's
bowels empty out the little ounces of life left in their
besieged bodies, it
is either time to cut Mugabe loose as a "rogue
pan-Africanist", an
anti-thesis of what pan-Africanism must stand for, or to
see him as the
two-legged manifestation of a revolution that lost its way.
Mugabe is
Pan-Africanism and its foundations-anti-colonialism-on trial.
There is an
effort to dismiss this rogue pan-Africanist as deviance, in
which case the
question will emerge: 'When those who were cautioning on its
trajectory
towards this tiredness and corruptness, what did its fiercest
defenders say
about both pan-Africanism and its its critics?' Or are we
saying that
pan-Africanism, the basis for Africa's stoic defense of him to
the West, is
okay but has the wrong ambassadors? In which we may ask: 'What
does the
correct ambassadors look like? Is the definition time-sensitive and
prone to
expire and decompose just like the human condition that Mugabe
represents?
If we cast Mugabe as pan-Africanism on trial, the issues
(land,
anti-colonial record) have become the veil that EITHER hides the
person
(dictator), which is what his defenders would say, OR the person who
enveils
his cruelty in issues, which is what Zimbabweans on the ground who
now drip
with cholera see. In which case, what we make of pan-Africanism or
the
"father-figures" is not escaping this two-way dialogue between issue and
persons. Africa seems to be struggling with that.
So who is this
Mugabe that 'intellectuals who matter' have been peddling and
defending,
absorbing with such religion his "popularity" among "the
grassroots"? Let's
narrow down his constituency, his popularity right now,
which would be his
closest relatives, his ministers, some of the party
chefs, top brass in the
security forces, some phony or corrupted war vets,
those who have skeletons
in their closets, outsiders who have heard, but not
felt, him as a person
through tyranny, and so forth. It is a very tiny and
dwindling minority that
still things Mugabe at 84 is interested in changing
the lives of anybody
including even himself. Because quite honestly, the
version of Mugabe that
some among academia often peddle about our tyrant is
not exactly the same
one we see. Our own "president" is an illegitimate
tyrant who has caused us
deep pain at a very personal level. We have paid
for Mugabe's popularity in
the eyes of his admirers' through the blood of
our own siblings and parents
and children and our own flights into exile-4
million out of 12 million
Zimbabweans living away from their country, the
crème la crème of academia.
The anthills of the countryside are now full of
graves of people who are
dying because of a tyrannical system that prevents
people from getting
drugs, food, and transport.
Some academics have swallowed Mugabe's
propaganda that sanctions are causing
the suffering. You have to marvel at
the precision with which the
intellectual arguments are driven home. Missing
from such high-handed
theorizing is the voice of the people whose stomachs
drip dysentry as we
speak, the hundreds of thousands of orphans, some 8
years old but already
the breadwinners of their own households. This is the
major challenge we as
Zimbabweans have had: even those who must know how
tyranny works thinks we
are crazy. They think the rural poor are simpletons
who do not get the
"larger picture", that this is being done for their own
good, for the future
of their children. That it's all about land in
Zimbabwe, nothing. That's
what our lives have become-less important than a
grain of soil.
Well, the children some of this academics speak of will be
dead by then.
Because of the disruptions to HIV programs, the wanton rape by
Mugabe's
militias and so forth, most children are being born with HIV/AIDS.
Public
health gurus rush for calculators, buying the junk that Zimbabwe has
reduced
infections and is on top of the AIDS pandemic. But what percentage
of people
still visit hospitals when they know there are no drugs, nurses,
and
doctors? Yet the hospital records are the basis of such infuriating
claims.
Ask any Zimbabwean near you about how many relatives have either
died of or
have Aids? In many families like mine the number is five and
counting, to
speak nothing of entire villages that have been clean out of
breadwinners.
In any case, the state deliberately distorts figures and
claims it is
succeeding in containing Aids so that it can receive more donor
funding. The
most recent case was when the Health Minister said cholera was
under control
and only 300 people had died. Many NGOs declared that a false
characterization, even more citizens phoned Zimbabwean internet and
shortwave media based in exile to say it's a lie. The figure can never be
known because the 300 are those who died at the dysfunctional hospitals. The
full extent of the catastrophe, and the true measure of it, is not the
written sources or the government: it is at the family level, when we
receive phone-calls that 'so and so has died, can you send $150-300 for the
coffin'.
To say these things is not to suggest that Zimbabweans have
not been doing
anything. You may know that countless mass protests of
varying magnitudes
have come to naught. The violence used to crush them has
been brutal. Short
of armed struggle, or a revolt within the state security
apparatus, it is
not likely that the people of Zimbabwe will risk their
lives. That's the
hard fact; there is a strong element of urban cowardice in
this. The rural
people experienced massive violence when they overwhelmingly
voted for the
MDC, and when pushed into mountains they fought back. The
urbanites looked
on with tails between their legs. I think the diaspora has
done a lot of
work to transform the mindset in certain sections of the
international
community through enterprising uses of the internet. These
cyber-guerrillas
have established short and medium wave radio stations
beaming into Zimbabwe
(voanews.com's 'Studio Seven' and SW Radio Africa),
internet radios (there
are tens and tens of these), online newspapers,
blogspots, and projects to
gather evidence in preparation for a
post-conflict justice, truth, and
healing process.
My own assessment
is that these efforts could achieve much more with each
and every one of
you's help. First, I think the Zimbabwean diasporas--the
significant ones
being in the US, Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand,
and neighboring
South Africa, Botswana and Namibia--are grossly
uncoordinated. If they were,
then there could be ways of mobilizing them as
a critical force for
transformation in Zimbabwe. One way to do this would be
for academics to
establish discussion forums and start up 'Zimbabwe
chapters' for common
action. Not just action in terms of signing online
petitions, but discussing
in particular how Zimbabweans themselves are
funding Mugabe's tyranny at
home and how they can stop doing so. The money
they send home to sustain
their parents is changed on the black market which
has been heavily
infiltrated by state agents. Government is busy printing
worthless paper,
which it uses to take the hard-earned money we are sending
home. It gets the
money and uses it to oil its system of patronage towards
the fat cats, or to
buy instruments of violence. The alternative would be
for people to do
something with this money, like routing it via countries
that are supportive
of the democratic struggle in Zimbabwe, from which
deliveries of food can
either be sent by companies based there into
Zimbabwe, or where the
diaspora's relatives can travel to get the money, buy
food and other
necessities and return home--without the forex. I believe
that if
well-coordinated, a system like this could take very little effort
to
communicate to both the diaspora and its host governments. Academics
could
be important resource persons in that endeavor.
I also think that the
information coming out of Zimbabwe could still be
further improved in the
interests of rolling back the propaganda upon which
some seminal works on
Zimbabwe is based. This would go some way towards
influencing the often
dubious policies of western and African governments
towards Mugabe which we
might blame on lack of a contrary subject position.
In conclusion, I do
want to say that it doesn't make sense to do research in
Zimbabwe, talking
to people today and writing 'fascinating' texts, and then
to leave those
very same people to their own devices against tyranny. If it
is possible to
have scholarship that focuses on the state, surely it is also
possible to
write against the very same state, to listen very carefully to
the suffering
of people, not only in Zimbabwe but also in eastern Congo and
Darfur, and
say: 'Enough!' I am not urging fellow academics to throw away
the chalk and
grab hold of an AK-47, but I am saying that we may have
grossly
underestimated the power of the pen to change the world we write
about. I
have yet to see a university, even on Zimbabwe's borders, where
entire
faculty, let alone students, put down their chalk and books and
marched onto
the street to demand that that their local councillor,
parliamentarian,
governor, minister, president, prime minister, or king,
take action, no
matter how symbolic to demand that Mugabe step down and save
human beings in
Zimbabwe from further harm.
So far, Zimbabwe is a foreign policy issue.
When will it be "an issue"?
* Clapperton Chakanetsa Mavhunga, Assistant
Professor of Science, Technology
& Society Massachusetts, Institute of
Technology (MIT)
If he's offered a quiet exit with judicial
immunity Zimbabwe's leader might
just be tempted to go
Jonathan
Steele
The Guardian,
Monday 15 December 2008
The substance of
Zimbabwe's horror stays the same. Only its miserable form
keeps changing.
Alongside hyperinflation, shanty-town evictions, mass
unemployment,
police-sponsored election violence and murder,
badly-administered farm
takeovers, rampant food shortages and the abduction
of human rights
activists, there now comes the latest manmade disaster -
cholera. Close to
800 lives have already been lost. Thousands have fled to
South Africa to try
to avoid it or, if already afflicted, at least to get
treatment.
As
the horror mounts, calls for action grow. A few verge on the risible.
"Bush
steps up pressure on Mugabe", says the headline on a wire service
report of
a White House statement calling on Zimbabwe's leader to resign.
Pressure?
The worst US president in living memory is almost through the door
himself,
with what remains of his political authority draped round his
ankles.
Statements from European leaders suffer from the repetitive
predictability
syndrome. Gordon Brown says "Enough is enough" and Nicolas
Sarkozy declares
"Mugabe must go", while the EU adds 11 new names to the
list of 168
Zimbabwean officials who are banned from entering.
The
significant shift is a chorus of calls for the use of force against
Mugabe,
and most of them are African. Archbishop Desmond Tutu - a Nobel
peace prize
winner no less - says the time has come to overthrow Mugabe. So
too does
Kenya's prime minister, Raila Odinga. Cheated out of victory in
presidential
elections earlier this year, he only got the prime ministership
thanks to a
power-sharing deal brokered by outsiders. What has angered him
particularly
is the way Mugabe seems to be wriggling out of a similar pact
in Zimbabwe.
Odinga wants the African Union to send "peacekeeping" troops,
but without
Mugabe's consent they would actually be war fighters.
John Sentamu, the
Archbishop of York, and a refugee from Idi Amin's reign of
terror in Uganda
in the late 1970s, takes a similar view. "Mugabe and his
henchmen must now
take their rightful place in The Hague and answer for
their actions. The
time to remove them from power has come," he says. He
does not spell out who
should conduct the removal, but hints that Zimbabwe's
neighbours are the
ones. He recalls Julius Nyerere's "courage" in sending
Tanzanian troops to
topple Amin, and argues that the starvation and
suffering in today's
Zimbabwe far exceed the horrors of the Ugandan
dictator's regime.
The
most recent convert is Jimmy Carter, the former US president who is
distinguished by a four-year term in which he only once ordered troops into
battle (a bid to rescue US hostages in Tehran). After recent briefings on
the country's humanitarian disaster from Zimbabwean NGO activists and UN aid
agencies, he says force may have to be used against Mugabe "as a last
resort".
The temptation to go to war for regime change is often
beguiling, especially
when intervention seems likely to meet minimal
resistance. Most of Mugabe's
army would probably desert if foreign troops
arrived. Tanzania's invasion of
Uganda in 1979 was quick and almost
bloodless. The problem was that Amin's
ultimate successor Milton Obote was
not much of an improvement, and civil
war ensued. The Vietnamese invasion to
topple the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia
in 1979 is a better example. The new
government in Phnom Penh was far less
bloody than the Khmer Rouge and
Cambodia could have been at peace if Reagan
and Thatcher had not backed Pol
Pot to mount armed resistance for several
years.
The difference with
Zimbabwe is that none of its neighbour governments
favours the use of force.
South Africa ruled it out this week, as did Jacob
Zuma, the country's
probable next president. He has been more critical of
Mugabe than Thabo
Mbeki was, yet draws back from making war. The AU is
against it too, leaving
Kenya's prime minister high and dry. Significantly
the current AU chairman
is Jakaya Kikwete, the Tanzanian president who knows
his regional history as
well as the Archbishop of York, and comes to a
different conclusion. "Only
dialogue between the Zimbabwean parties,
supported by the AU and other
regional actors, can restore peace and
stability to that country," his
spokesman said this week. Even Botswana,
which strongly opposes Mugabe, says
no to force as well as to AU economic
sanctions. Force, after all, has a
habit of getting out of control.
What, then, can be done? Is the outside
world impotent? Not entirely. The
power-sharing deal that Mugabe and the
opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai,
struck in September after mediation by
Mbeki and the Southern African
Development Community (SADC) is still the
best solution, precisely because
it offers a transition through peace.
Mugabe is haggling over the
distribution of ministries between his party and
Tsvangirai's, refusing to
abandon all control of the police. But he has not
repudiated the pact. He
would rather provoke Tsvangirai into doing so - a
trap which the opposition
leader must avoid at all costs.
Threatening
Mugabe and his army and police commanders with criminal
proceedings at The
Hague, as Sentamu suggests, is only likely to entrench
them further. This
summer's indictment of Sudan's president has complicated
the already
difficult search for peace in Darfur. A similar move would have
no better
effect in Zimbabwe.
The opposite tactic would be to offer Mugabe and his
friends a soft landing.
Distasteful though it is, allowing Mugabe a quiet
departure and judicial
immunity is more likely to persuade him to go than a
cascade of threats.
SADC's mediation proposals make no mention of
prosecution, so the offer may
be interpreted as being on the table by
default. It would be better to write
it in explicitly.
That is the
lesson from the collapse of virtually every dictatorship over
the past 30
years. Whether it was the Shah of Iran or Nicaragua's strongman
Anastasio
Somoza or Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines or, as recently as
this year,
Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan, the lever which got these
discredited men to
relinquish their grip was not the threat of a jail cell,
let alone invasion.
It was a guarantee of retirement in safety.
Zimbabwe should follow this
model. In the case of Mugabe's cronies, offers
of jobs in the new coalition
government may also help to split them from
their current boss. The
power-sharing pact provides a mechanism, which is
why it is still Zimbabwe's
best hope. Force is the wrong answer.
j.steele@guardian.co.uk
http://www.dispatch.co.za/article.aspx?id=279750
2008/12/15
AN EAST London church
mission to Zimbabwe has found the situation to be "as
bad as media reports
say ".
Pastor David Lock and church elder Bill Cozens of the
Gonubie Baptist
church, who arrived home on Friday with a team of seven
congregation
members, said media reports on the level of strife and poverty
were
accurate.
"We were told of some rural communities living on
insects and roots," said
Cozens. "We also saw for ourselves just how bad the
situation is, with long
queues outside banks, a breakdown in basic services
and general poverty."
The trip formed part of the church's annual
thanksgiving offering, which
sees it raise funds for charitable
causes.
"This year we managed to collect R35000 during the month of
November, of
which R20000 went to Zimbabwe," Lock said.
Grace
Community Church in Mzamomhle, with just 40 members, managed to raise
an
additional R5000 while members of the Baptist church donated a further
R5000
in food.
"We then contacted the Baptist Church in Bulawayo, Northside
Community
Church in Harare and Boggis Retirement Centre in Gweru and asked
what we
should bring," Lock said.
"Based on their recommendations we
took food items like rice, peanut butter,
oil, sugar and salt - all things
in short supply. We also took up essentials
such as candles, matches and
medical supplies."
Using the church bus and a hired trailer to transport
the supplies, the team
departed on December 6.
"I was a little
apprehensive at crossing the border at Beit Bridge, which
took us
three-and-a-half hours, and was also a little edgy at the first few
roadblocks we encountered," Lock said.
"Although we were made to feel
unwelcome by the authorities, the people on
the ground gave us an incredibly
warm welcome."
The team visited Harare and Bulawayo and stopped in at the
retirement
village in Gweru.
"It was as bad as I expected it to be,"
said Cozens. "Often media reports
are incorrect or just highlight the bad
things but in the case of Zimbabwe
they have it spot on."
Cozens told
of a 650-bed, State- run hospital they visited in Harare that
had all but
closed down. "It was built in 1998 so it's just 10 years old,
but there were
just 22 children receiving care paid for by the church. We
were told the
reason for it being in that state was that people could not
get to it
because transport was too expensive," he said.
The team also visited an
informal chrome mining community of about 45
people.
"They mine on a
subsistence basis and work in incredibly unsafe conditions,
earning only
around eight million Zimbabwe dollars a month," said Cozens.
"That's enough
to buy a loaf of bread."
Cozens said the country was in such a bad
financial state that the Zimbabwe
dollar was being replaced by fuel coupons
as the currency of choice.
"The Bulawayo Baptist Church was given a
six-quadrillion dollar cheque by
one of the congregation during collection,
but the church can't do anything
with it because the banks won't accept
cheques," he said.
Lock said the trip had been a success and they would
consider similar trips
in the future. "Going there and seeing the plight of
the people first hand
made it very real for us."
Every story is
different.
I am 70 years of age. My husband died on 30th May this year
and I was left
destitute because his only child, from a previous marriage
did not want to
share any inheritance. Suffice to say, I had no option but
to survive and
the only way I could do so was to sell my furniture, my
jewellery and
anything else I had just to earn some valuable USD. The house
in which I
live, was purchased by my husband's company and with careful
saving, growing
my own vegetables and limiting myself to one meal a day,
I've kept going.
I am luckier than most, but only because I still have
the ability to 'make a
plan'. I couldn't afford a dentist, so I pulled my
own teeth. I couldn't
afford a doctor, so I stitched a dog's bite on my
arm with needle and
thread. I look after an African family who have
nothing - all seven of
them - ensuring they get food, medication and
whatever else I can find to
keep them going. I have a young white family
living in cottage, with their
two babies - and a young bachelor, living in a
thatched rondavel, whose
salary doesn't even cover his basic needs - and
together we form a 'family'
keeping our eyes out for each other and doing
the best we can can to keep
going.
And - yes, we old biddies ARE
PROUD! We have every reason to be. The only
thing I have plenty of, is
loneliness and spare time, and I have already put
out feelers to join up
with some NGO to go to the rural areas to help with
the cholera epidemic. I
am not a qualitified nurse - but I care deeply and
I know how desperate the
situation is outside. I have not had much luck,
because possibly they
think me 'too old'. But I am not! My whole life has
been directed towards
looking after disabled servicemen, orphans, and now
the indigenous folk of
this country.
The author of this article must not forget that there are
those of us who
are fighting -not only for our own lives - but for those of
our countrymen.
Most of the posh cars seen on the roads belong to Government
personnel who
have more than you can imagine to spend on
themselves.
How did I manage it? Well, let me tell you. Before my
husband passed
away, he decided to sell his antique furniture and only one
cabinet was
sold. I held onto that money, even though it meant going hungry
and bit by
bit over the months that followed, I was able to keep adding to
that money
by painting and selling my work.
I heard of two old people
who lived in a disused staff quarters. They used
to own a house and a car,
but found themselves with nothing when they had
their land and their home
stolen. A kind African let them live in a shed
on his property. On their
anniversary the wife went out and sold her
jewellery and her wedding ring.
She and her husband of over forty years
decided they would have one last
night out on the 'town' and they went to a
hotel and had a great dinner,
dancing to music of their past. When the
'party was over' they returned to
the broken down shack, curled up into
their blankets on the stone floor, and
shared a glass of the wine they had
left from their night out, and the
left-overs. They poisoned themselves and
they were found together holding
each other in their arms as they couldn't
bear to see another
day.
Remember,. every story is different. I am still here. I refuse to
let go.
There are too many people left in this country who need compassion,
care,
and hope to go on.
There are organisations and charitable
groups who try to help, but the
solution lies with all of us here - black
and white and coloured - to start
caring for each other and we try! It
takes more than courage,.it takes
fury and grief to explode into action. I
have taken in people who have had
their families murdered in cold blood, and
experienced such fear you cannot
imagine it the enormity of it. I have sat
up through the nights watching
the house and listening for intruders. There
are so few of us left now -
hardly even 2000, as you state. But we are
still here and we won't leave
until this is done.
Today, in the main
city of this country I ventured, and I saw a populace of
'stick figures'
robotically going about their business, faces closed and
dull. Starvations,
AIDS, cholera, anthrax,. extreme poverty, has robbed
them of all hope. It
was not all those years ago, we saw glossy fat women
with their babies.
Today I did not see one small child on the back of a
mother. The High
Court was empty today. No staff. So I could not get
along with the Estate
of my late husband, but that no longer seems so
important. Everywhere we
see the portrait of Robert Mugabe in every
government building, but nobody
looks at it much any more. Fly speckled and
faded from the sun, he just
hangs there as a reminder of the horrors he can
impose if we don't do what
he demands.
I live not far from Government House, and in the past we
could hear the
screeching, wailing sirens of his entourage proclaiming 'the
master' is in
our presence. Today, there is less fanfare and more secrecy
of his
journeys because he is afraid - and that's good! We've been afraid
for too
damn long. And that fear has persisted as babies died, wives
abducted and
hideously bludgeoned to death in nearby fields. This is
Zimbabwe . I am a
white widow. I have no intention of leaving this land in
which I have spent
my entire life. I belong here as much as my darker
skinned country man. I
love this country, and the people who inhabit it.
And that is why I am a
proud Zimbabwean. Every day we receive a small gift
- be it a couple of
tomatoes from someone's garden, or a small bunch of
flowers - that's
Christmas. We are poor - but we are richer in other senses
nobody can
understand unless they go through the torments this country has
faced over
many years. We yearn for some light at the end of the tunnel,
but we refuse
to pick up arms and kill others as we have been killed. We
wait for
justice, but not from us; from a Power beyond our capacity. It
will come!
Perhaps the world can learn from us????
To all those who
live elsewhere and who have never experienced the
deprivation that just one
man can dole out to millions, let me tell you, it
is a testing experience
that does not scream out for compassion, nor for
money, but hope of a better
time one day. From the bottom of my heart I
thank you for caring for those
who cannot care for themselves. It's this
that makes the world a better
place. There are many here who do what they
can to make the 'oldies' leave
this vicious world, feeling loved regardless
of their colour.
This is
just my story. Multiply it a thousand times - and include the human
greed
that makes it harder for us to withstand the hardships, but which is
prevalent in all humanity regardless of race and creed. Above all, learn
from it, because - but for the Grace of God there goes You."
An old
White Zimbabwean!
With warmth
Sue.
http://www.zimbabwetoday.co.uk/
A snapshot of the blatant lies and the terrible
truth in Zimbabwe today
Last Thursday President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe
declared that his
country's cholera epidemic, which had made sensational
headlines throughout
the world, was now over. The danger had been
"arrested". There was now no
more cholera in Zimbabwe.
Also last
Thursday Pedzisai Munda, aged 47, died of cholera in her shack in
Hopley,
South Harare. She met her death in a sea of urine, faeces and vomit,
overflowing from the temporary toilet - a one-metre deep pit just yards from
her home - which had flooded in the heavy rains.
Her death came two
weeks after the similar death of her neighbour, also from
cholera. Attempts
had been made to get the neighbour to Budiriro Hospital,
15 kilometres away,
but they failed. Pedzisai had nursed her neighbour as
best she could. There
was no-one to nurse Pedzisai, and she died in squalid
misery.
Last
Friday Zimbabwe's information minister, Sikhanyiso Ndlovu explained
that the
cholera epidemic - which no longer exists, see above - was being
spread by
British agents, who were deliberately infecting the population
with the
disease, and with anthrax. Their aim was, he said, to weaken the
country
ahead of an armed invasion. Despite the succcess of the agents'
efforts, as
evidenced by the chronic weakening of the country, Mr. Ndlovu
had no
information on when we might expect the armed invasion.
Also last Friday
Taurai Siza, aged 10, died of cholera. An Aids orphan,
Taurai lived on the
streets of Hopley, and slept at night wrapped in an old
blanket, under a
piece of plastic sheeting. There was no money for a coffin,
so they buried
Taurai in his blanket, some 100 metres from his plastic
shelter.
Last
Saturday I spoke to the Zimbabwe Minister of Health, David
Parirenyatwa. The
minister told me: "Cholera has been managed in the area
you are talking
about. You and your handlers in the West can wish it to
continue, but it's
no longer there. Period."
Also last Saturday, in Glenview, Harare, three
people, all of whom lived in
a street called 13 Avenue, died of the cholera
which, according to Mr.
Pairenyatwa, is no longer there. Period..
One
of the three was Tonderai Chapeyama, aged 18. Tonderai had nursed her
friend
Elizabeth Mutodzaniswa when Elizabeth had the disease. Elizabeth
recovered.
Tonderai sickened and died.
Last Friday, British home secretary Jacqui
Smith warned that Zimbabweans,
fleeing their country and buying false
passports, might bring cholera with
them to the West.
A personal
thought for today, Monday: If Mr. Mugabe's non-existent cholera
does reach
Britain and the rest of the world, perhaps then, at long last,
Britain and
the rest of the world will grow genuinely concerned about what
is happening
in Zimbabwe, and come to our aid. Perhaps.
Posted on Sunday, 14 December
2008 at 19:03
http://www.latimes.com
Robert Mugabe's regime is targeting rights
activists and MDC leaders even as
efforts continue for a power-sharing
arrangement with the opposition group.
By Robyn Dixon
5:01 PM PST,
December 14, 2008
Reporting from Johannesburg, South Africa -- They came for
Zimbabwe human
rights activist Jestina Mukoko at dawn, nearly two weeks ago,
according to
her son, a witness. About 15 men, some with pistols, took her
barefoot from
her house in Norton, north of Harare, not even allowing her to
change out of
her nightclothes or find her eyeglasses. Mukoko, director of
the Zimbabwe
Peace Project, has not been seen since, and relatives believe
she is in
official custody. Police deny having arrested her.
"We
worry for her life," said Mukoko's aunt, Rudo Sanyanga, 44, in a recent
interview in Harare, the capital. "We know that people have been abducted,
killed, left for dead. People have been subjected to all kinds of
torture."
In the last six weeks, 22 opposition or civil rights
activists have been
seized and not heard from since, according to rights
group Amnesty
International. The disappearances have occurred as the
nation's September
deal to create a unity government founders. The
power-sharing arrangement
between President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF and the
Movement for Democratic
Change, or MDC, was signed after disputed elections
in March and June, but
talks on its implementation have
stalled.
About two weeks ago, MDC security chief Chris Dhlamini was
abducted in broad
daylight by five men, relatives say. Dhlamini did not show
fear, nor let his
family know there was anything wrong when he was taken
away. He even joked
with his abductors, said his nephew, Washington Cheya,
21, who witnessed the
kidnapping.
"He hugged his last-born son for
almost a minute," said Cheya in a recent
interview in Harare. After a few
minutes, Cheya said, he tried to call his
uncle, but the phone was switched
off. "By then I was worried."
Last week, Gandhi Mudzwinga, a close
ally of MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai,
was forced into a car with nine men in
the Harare suburb of Msasa, according
to the party.
Two other
employees of Mukoko's Zimbabwe Peace Project, Broderick Takawira
and Pascal
Gonzo, were forced into a car by men in civilian clothes and
taken away the
same day, according to the organization.
Others said to have been seized
include Zacharia Nkomo, 33, brother of
leading human rights lawyer Harrison
Nkomo, taken from his home in Masvingo
on Dec. 5, according to Amnesty
International. Among those missing is a
2-year-old boy who was taken along
with his parents who were among a group
of 15 activists seized in Banket, 55
miles north of Harare, six weeks ago.
The reason for the upsurge in
abductions is unclear, but one senior ruling
party official said hard-line
"securocrats" and generals under Mugabe have
wanted to see the unity
government deal collapse. The official spoke on
condition of anonymity,
fearing reprisal from the regime for speaking to a
Western
journalist.
With cholera and hunger killing hundreds of Zimbabweans, the
West has
hardened its position on Zimbabwe, calling on Mugabe to leave
power, while
African nations continue to support the troubled power-sharing
efforts.
Last week President Bush said it was time for Mugabe to go. At
United
Nations meetings scheduled to begin today, Secretary of State
Condoleezza
Rice is expected to press for tougher action against Zimbabwe,
particularly
by southern African states.
Mugabe, for his part, has
threatened new elections unless the opposition
accepts his terms on a unity
government.
The regime's rhetoric has become increasingly strident in
recent days,
accusing Britain and the U.S. of spreading cholera in Zimbabwe
in an act of
biological warfare and claiming the West is planning an
invasion. Mugabe
also alleges that his political opponents have set up
military training
camps in Botswana, a claim strongly denied by the
neighboring country.
The government has denied Tsvangirai a passport, and
he is currently outside
Zimbabwe. Mugabe, 84, last week called him a
political prostitute for
meeting leaders outside the country.
"Why .
. . would one globe-trot to Germany, to the Netherlands, to Botswana,
to
Senegal, visiting all these countries?" he said. "We don't want that
prostitution."
Mukoko, the abducted peace project director, is one of
Mugabe's sharpest
critics, cataloging violence and human rights abuses by
his regime.
"We have been to so many police stations in Harare," said
Takudzwa Dizha,
17, Mukoko's son. "They have all denied they are holding
her."
Some analysts speculate that Mukoko's work on documenting violence
and
abuses made her a particular target, because leading government
officials
are afraid of prosecution under a potential new political
order.
Last week, Harare judge Anne Gowora ordered police to search for
Mukoko in
all detention facilities and demanded that advertisements on her
disappearance be placed in newspapers.
A former official of the
Central Intelligence Organization, citing senior
sources, said the activists
had been seized by a military intelligence
group, the Special Air Services,
and would be accused of preparing to launch
an insurrection from training
camps in Botswana. He spoke on condition of
anonymity, fearing
reprisals.
The senior ZANU-PF official said the Botswana story was untrue
and the
arrests were designed to intimidate the opposition. He said
moderates in the
party strongly opposed such measures.
"There are a
lot of people in the government who are going to lose out if
there's a
government of national unity. Things are going to be run
differently," he
said. "These are people who are assiduously working to
ensure that the deal
doesn't stick. They are working day and night to ensure
the deal is
scuttled.
"People know that when they're out, they will be prosecuted,"
the official
said. "You know the riskiest job in the world is to be
president because if
you do corrupt things, they will go for you when you
are out of office.
People are being made to account for their misdemeanors
when they're in
office."
The MDC says the arrests are destructive to
the power-sharing deal.
"The biggest sucker punch to dialogue relates to
the abductions of civic
society and MDC leaders and activists, including
2-year-old children," said
MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa in a statement last
week.